


Megalith

by artreactor



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Genderbending, alpha kids keep the gender they are attracted to but not their sexualities, au where jake is happy, background jane/roxy, gender questioning, genderfluid jake, jake is lithromantic, jake->dirk, second person to avoid awkward genderbend names, sexuality questioning, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-16
Updated: 2014-08-16
Packaged: 2018-02-13 10:10:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2146812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artreactor/pseuds/artreactor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>akoiromantic;<br/>A romantic orientation on the aromantic spectrum which describes an individual who feels romantic attraction towards others, but who does not desire reciprocation of that attraction or does not wish to enter a romantic relationship.</p><p>"But then you root out a movie from under your bed and watch it under your covers like a cheesy high school comedy is the most terrifying horror movie because it is. America, for all its talk, is no freer than your tower in this monster infested island."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Megalith

**Author's Note:**

> Premise: AU where the alpha kids identify as the opposite gender and/or were born the opposite sex. As opposed to keeping their sexualities the same, the genders they are attracted to are kept the same. Aka: AU where Jake has the potential to be free and happy
> 
> CW: Internalised cissexism, internalised homophobia, abuse, unhealthy relationships, aka: typical stuff you get when analysing the alpha kids.

12.

 

You're a woman of action.

At least that's what you're told. You're a person who gets things done before they get out of hand. A few creatures and monsters on your deserted island are nothing to you and your prime adventurer's spirit. With two guns and a lopsided utility belt, no one is a match for you and everyone knows it.

Well, actually, that's a bit of a fallacy and you know it more than anyone. No one actually really calls you a woman of action You don't really do anything; it's more that you let things happen and most of the time they work out. The only thing you really do is see how long you can hang upside down watching movies until you pass out and fall off the bed. You have a lot of time on your hands.

You're not really all that much of a woman of action. You're not really a woman either. You're at that awkward age where your glasses are still a bit too big for your face but you're okay with it because they're hiding acne scars. You think you might just be taller than Strider now and, when you think about it, it seems so funny to you that you might tower over her when you meet if that ever was to happen.

You're not really a woman. But you're pretty sure you're a girl. You can honestly say, cross your heart and give up your scout's honour, that you are positively certain you are a girl around 78% of the time. Strider would no doubt claim that statistic is utterly false and try and come up with some new one (she's always doing that these days and you think she should just get a calculator or build herself a robot to do stuff like that) but you don't want to tell her in case her statistic is closer to 100% because this is one of those things you're not sure is actually normal but you don't want to ask in case it's not so you just pretend to yourself that it is.

(You've another inkling, another tiny thing that you're not sure of and you're not sure if is a thing you honestly feel or if your mind is just playing tricks on you but you don't want to ask in case you have to give up on this silly little fantasy that comes to your head every now and again.)

You should ask Crocker because he will know the truth. You can't ask Crocker because you don't really think he'll listen. You should ask Lalonde because he won't judge you. You can't ask Lalonde because he'll tell Crocker and Strider.

Instead, you do nothing. If you ignore the feeling of need to use your penknife to cut off lumps of the frizz you call hair, it'll go away. If you resist the urge to call Strider at three am and tell her that you thought about kissing her once then the image will eventually wash out of your mind like diluted memories of cared for pumpkin patches and fire.

Sometimes you wish you were American, that someone had came and found you. If you lived with people maybe you would be able to figure out if this was a thing because you can't Google it because even deleting your browsing history won't delete your mind if you find you'd rather ignorance. Maybe if you lived with people you wouldn't feel like this at all.

But then you root out a movie from under your bed and watch it under your covers like a cheesy high school comedy is the most terrifying horror movie because it is. America, for all its talk, is no freer than your tower in this monster infested island.

Sometimes you envy how free the monsters are.

 

13.

 

Nothing goes away.

You cut your hair the day after Crocker's birthday. He thanked you for your gift but you can't help but feel he was disappointed with something and maybe it was because you don't quite trust yourself to make something anything in the line of Strider's handiwork yet and maybe your bunny was inferior. You tell yourself you're okay with that but you're not. He tells you his father got him an antiqued watch and you're not sure why you cry; you never thought you wanted a stupid pocket watch but maybe you did because you've long stopped crying over not having family to give you birthday presents.

On the subject of birthday presents, yours has been acting up. You've been dizzy for days since the last time it threw you to the ground. You complained about it but all the response you got was Strider's stupid autoresponder patronising you and asking if you wanted a special girl's option if you were going to fight like a sissy.

You threw your computer out the window and spent the night fixing it but the satisfaction of the smash was worth it.

But the robot has you pinned to the ground now and it isn't hitting you so you presume Strider must have done something. Did she say something about a novice mode? You don't really remember. You've been doing a lot of that recently.

It doesn't let you go either so you take the opportunity to ponder why Strider didn't give the robot her hair. You figure after a moment of pondering that it would have been hard to render on to a metal frame and really, you were meant to be destroying the thing not giving it hair styling tips. The robot doesn't seem to have gotten that memo because it lets go of one of your arms for a moment to curiously tug at one of the mismatched curls you left under your ears. You were never good at evenly doing your hair cuts.

The robot lets go of it after a second and you let out a breath you didn't know you'd been holding. It's starting to get uncomfortable being pinned like this and not even just because your leg has fallen asleep but you try not to think about that. The robot is still staring at your hair like you've almost disappointed it in some way. You aim a punch at the stupid contraption's stupid expressionless face because how dare it be disappointed in you too when it shouldn't even have coherent thought outside of making you see stars. It catches your wrist with ease and you practically screech in frustration, kicking and lashing out with renewed, but useless, energy.

The robot stares at you now with the exact same expression but now you feel like you've personally offended it and you eventually stop kicking. It keeps you pinned for a few more moments before rolling off you and it's gone in a moment before you can even aim another punch.

Strider herself messages you two hours later to ask what the hell you did to your hair and it's the first time ever you don't answer her.

 

14.

 

You watched Avatar once before promptly deciding to never watch it again after Crocker commented that your fascination with Neytiri is a little peculiar.

He answers a question that has been plaguing you for 18 months and your blood feels like ice.

However he sends you a poster for your birthday and you wonder if it's a prank because if it is it's a really tactless joke. You message him with the full intent of ripping into him but his answer to your first defining, second guessing, question, is one of those rambling rants that he isn't actually all that known for as much as the rest of you are and it's enough to make you listen to him giving you a completely different answer to a question you thought was answered.

Your Neytiri poster looks a lot less daunting then and you spend a lot of time with it but, in fairness, it is in your room and you spend a lot of time in your room anyway. Over time, a few more get added to the collection but Neytiri is always your favourite. Kissing your posters is so much less terrifying than telling anyone, someone, that you still want to kiss them mainly because you think you might be wrong with your own understanding of your wants.

You make up for the lack of joke gifts on your birthday by sending him so many blue penises on his that he nearly has a hernia opening them in front of his father and doesn't speak to you for the best part of a fortnight. (He later tells you it was because he wanted to be able to scold you for being irresponsible without laughing.)

 

15.

 

Seeing your friends in person is so disconcerting.

The first thing you notice is surprisingly that either Strider caught up with you or you were never taller in the first place. It's surprising mainly because Strider's hair is missing but for some reason you didn't notice that until Lalonde ruffles what is left enough to almost earn a pointy shade to the eye.

It's shorter than yours now. You haven't cut it since you were thirteen and split ends and humidity cause it to frizz through even the tightest of braiding but for some reason you still don't cut it and you try not to think about why. Strider's is shorter than yours ever was, small uneven strands still sticking out from where she missed them and the rest sticking out at odd angles from what was no doubt a hell of a ride. It looks like she cut it off with a katana.

"I cut it with the katana," she answers when Crocker poses the question of her.

You blame the adrenaline shaking through your bones, because it was so close everything was so close, when you toss the head and those stupid glasses into the lava. Strider apologises for acting hastily, not sparing you the time to give you an explanation before expecting you to whale right in like you always do, guns blazing. She knows more than anyone that you never do any such thing.

You slap her on the back and tell her that it could have been worse even though you're not sure how it could have been. She's still frowning, glasses slightly askew from the force of the aforementioned slap so you assure her that you had plenty of time to make a decision, no worries.

And with blood on your teeth and an unwanted kiss still lingering on your lips and making them feel like static, you have made that decision.

 

16.

 

It's the twelfth of April and you're lying on top of one of the megalithic fixtures on your land, arms cushioning your head as you stare at the peculiar sky. Of course, megalithic tombs aren't really your first choice when there are ones you can actually raid but it's a slow day.

"Coo hoo," you say quietly, almost only a breath but your voice still echoes even though it's not enough for Strider to hear you as she sits under the fixture, frowning at her phone.

You huff at the lack of attention and swing around so you're lying across the fixture the other way, head hanging down to take a gander at what Strider's doing. Your hair gets in your face and you sputter for a moment, trying to get it out of your mouth and eyes and you swear for a second you hear an almost chuckle but by the time you brush the frizz back and fix your glasses, she's staring at you straight faced.

"I'll take it that was Crocker?" you say and it's hard to speak while hanging upside down so you lift your head up for a second to catch your breath before swinging back up again.

"Lalonde," she corrects and you shrug. It was a fifty fifty guess. They seem to be on Strider's case more so than yours. Sometimes you wish they'd message you and wring your ear off to give her a break but on the other hand you figure that they know what's good for them not asking you for romantic advice.

"What ails our good friend today?" you question and Strider frowns at you.

"That's a bad habit."

"What is?"

"Asking questions you already know the answer to," she says and it's almost in good humour the way she grabs you by the bow tie and yanks you off the fixture. She tries to do it in a way that you'll be able to save yourself and land safely. You land on your head.

You groan slightly and when you look up, glasses wonky, you think Strider might look apologetic but it's probably a trick of the light. Of course, you do already know the answer to your earlier question. It's the day before Crocker's birthday. You find it hard to manage time here in this labyrinth but Strider makes sure you keep track of the days, says it's unhealthy to let yourself get lost. You think she just worries too much.

Lalonde is sorting out the birthday party. By the amount he's been fretting about it recently, you'd swear he was planning a trip to the moon. It still bamboozles you that you might not actually be far off the mark there. Lalonde told you weeks ago it would be a blast. You're not sure it can be if Crocker doesn't show up which, according to Lalonde, is now rather likely.

The only message you've got from Lalonde is to tell you that he's got everything sorted, that all you need to do is show up tomorrow. The only message you've recently got from Crocker is telling you that Lalonde can't just work hard at a birthday party and and talk about helping everyone out to make up for the fact that he doesn't work at their relationship and never actually helps anyone.

Strider grabs you and pulls you over by the arm, tight lipped. It's moments like these that you think it would be so easy to roll the whole way over, to press her against the stone and to kiss her until you can feel blood on your teeth again. It's moments like this where you look at the way Strider looks at her phone after all this, brow furrowed, and think that she wants something like that from Lalonde instead.

But it's in the moments after, the moments of that little bit of enlightenment in the back of your head that you don't quite understand yet, that you know that neither of you want that.

You think Strider might want it under different circumstances with different people. You get the inkling from the way she looks at you sometimes, all ever so slight confusion that shouldn't ever be apparent on someone like Strider's face. You get it from the way your head feels fuzzy and glowy, filling in words when she won't finish sentences. You get it from lying under your bed, wondering if you were just a little less than 78% sure, what if what if.

But none of that really matters any more and the realisation that it doesn't startles you, just a little. You're not thirteen with short hair and a short fuse. You're sixteen with short shorts and a short attention span as you laugh loud enough to startle Strider, wrenching your arm away as you all but fling yourself back on top of the fixture. The glowing in your head is like a lighthouse and Strider questioning you is like pointless static to your ears because your new home is pi and your love is √-1.

Strider is already standing, a hand on your ankle to stop you from slipping as you stand up, hands outstretched and face cracked into the widest grin your face can muster as you yell "Coo hoo!" loud enough for it to echo around every corner of the maze and loud enough to make the ribcages of skeletal monsters rattle.

Those monsters wish they were half as free as you.


End file.
